On Tuesday night, June 7th, Danielle Allison, Laura Rutherford, and I drove to Galway to attend Clare Murphy’s last Story Night. The event, which was also Story Night’s fifth birthday party, was held at The Blue Teapot Theatre on Munster Avenue. We arrived early, and Clare directed us around the corner to Kava, a fabulous tapas restaurant. We got back just a few minutes before it was to start at 8:00 p.m. and slid into the seats Clare had saved for us.
The theatre was packed; all the chairs were taken and 20-30 people were sitting on pillows and carpet squares on the edges of the performance space. It was a vibrant young crowd wearing loose linen pants, knee-high boots, long tapestry skirts, striped leg warmers, hand-knit elbow-length fingerless gloves in bright chunky teal yarn, message t-shirts, orange turtleneck sweaters, Sherpa hats with tassels and long chin ties, and flowing floral scarves. Most of the women had long thick hair and most of the men did not. Clare, in contrast, was wearing a smart black frock with a big pink peony at the waist, a long rope of pearls, and one of her trademark shawls. She, and they, were all gorgeous. It made me nostalgic for the days when I might have worn an upholstery-inspired skirt myself. Danielle told us that this was just the Galway vibe for young, and sometimes old as well. And what a great vibe it is; this crowd looked colorful and comfortable, creative and eclectic.
When Clare stepped up the place burst into applause. She said that was what she loved about Story Night in the early days, “I didn’t have to do a thing and everyone clapped.” She gave us a brief history and told us the rules: no mobile phones, don’t leave in the middle of someone’s story, and no poetry. She explained that the no poetry part was because there were already plenty of opportunities to speak and hear it in Galway. One of Clare’s greatest gifts as a storyteller is her ease in front of an audience, and with this group she seemed especially in her element – warm, charming, and inclusive. She allowed as how with this being the last night she might be a little rattled, but I didn’t see any sign of it. She looked, felt, and sounded as natural and right on stage as a songbird does in a tree.
She then told us the very first story she told on the very first Story Night – the gruesome story of Mr. Fox, “Be bold, be bold, but not too bold, lest your heart’s blood run cold.” She asked me up next and I told The Underground Forest. I was followed by Alicja from Poland who told a version of The Firebird. Paddy then got up to sing Sixteen Tons while the tea and cake people went off to prepare for the break. He’d just got started when the fire alarm went off. Clare went to investigate, but no one else left the room and the wonderful Jonathan Gunning got up to lead everyone in hand gestures in rhythm to the pulsing alarm. When the alarm finally stopped, Jonathan led us all in singing Happy Birthday to Story night after which we took a long tea and cake break.
When we came back, Clare told her version of The Wide Mouthed Frog, and then explained the concept of “good-manning” to us. I’d never heard that phrase before, and it’s basically the encouragement given by listeners when the storyteller pauses briefly, such as “I see,” or “oh, aye”, or “good man”. She did a great brief bit in which she imagined Peig Sayers starting her story, “It was a dark, dreary, dark day . . .” Peig/Clare pauses and then as Clare mimes a man with a pipe, she nods and says, “Go on.” Anyway, in Clare’s version, whenever she paused in her story she encouraged us to say or do whatever we wanted. The story she told was The Plop Monster, she paused frequently, the audience was happy to comply with playful and creative contributions. One of my favorites was when she asked us all to imagine our own most terrible monster and someone called out, “Melancholy”.
Jonathan Gunning came up next. Jonathan is an award winning street performer, a founding member of Clowns Without Borders Ireland, and he recently acted in a production at the Abbey Theatre. He’s also a storyteller with a remarkably narrative physicality and on this last Story Night he did a simply stunning piece about a butterfly and a bear. Jonathan is one long honed sinew, and he gracefully showed us the butterfly flying up, and up, and up to “the most inviting branch”. He invited us to laugh at him with his almost too precious and melodramatic gestures and facial expressions that barely veiled the tenderness and authentic emotion that supported them. He made us feel the bear thundering into the forest, and then showed us how each creature admired the other. The story ended with the bear doing a graceful turn in the forest as the butterfly dreamed of being menacing and strong.
We heard a couple more short stories, but it was then 10:30 and we had to leave for our hour-long drive back to Athlone. It was very difficult to leave. I learned from Clare the next day that the telling went on to 11:30 p.m. and the party until 2:00 a.m.
Farewell Story Night and congratulations to Clare Murphy for nurturing it, and the warm and loving community that has grown up around it, for the last five years.
From the top the photos are the crowd, Clare, Jonathan Gunning, and Laura and Danielle outside the Blue Teapot Theatre.
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